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Kenya: Young Girl Out to Make a Mark
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The East African Standard (Nairobi)
25 March 2008
Posted to the web 24 March 2008
Mutwiri Mutuota
Nairobi
March 17 will forever be etched in the mind of a new Kenya Police recruit, Margaret Wangari. This was the day she made the national team and will don the famous red, black and green strip for the first time at a IAAF World Championship series event when she lines up for the March 30 Edinburgh World Cross.
"As part of the team, I expect to perform well," she remarked when her place as a surprise inclusion in the senior women's race squad was confirmed at Kigari Teachers Training College in Embu.
That she was chosen ahead of world 5000m silver medallist and eighth place finisher in Mombasa, Vivian Cheruiyot, was testament of the faith national team coaches had in her as Kenya bids to capture the elusive 8km women's title from arch rivals Ethiopia.
She started running in Form One at Kagondo Secondary School where she met Francis Kamau Mwaniki who runs Nyahururu's Mfae Athletics Club, famous for nurturing prodigious talent such as World Junior 1500m champion, Veronica Nyaruai.
Wangari spent most of 2003 in school and training. However, towards the end of the year, she attempted to qualify in the national junior team to the 2004 World Cross in Lausanne.
She made her national cross championships debut on February 13, 2004 where she finished in 27th after stopping her timer at 21:44.0 as the then 18-year-old's bid to run for Kenya came to a shuddering halt.
Later in the year, she resumed her cross-country campaign, this time opting to try her luck in the senior 4km ranks. She finished second at three meets in Nairobi, Machakos and Eldoret.
Then she enlisted for the junior 6km race at the 2004 National Cross-Country Championships where she clocked 20:03.2 to finish seventh and was subsequently named in the provisional squad for the St Denis-Gaimler World Cross.
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"I accompanied the team to Kigari, Embu and after two weeks of training, I was not named to the final squad. It was very disappointing since I had worked so hard," she recalls.
Wangari endured a very rough 2006 where she dropped out of Kagondo in the second term of form 3 and had to return home to be engaged in her family's only source of income.
"I missed the cross-country and track championships after my family found it difficult to raise my school fees. I had to help in our shamba (subsistence farm) to make ends meet," she recounts. Wangari skipped the 2007 national cross championships in Mombasa but lined up at the February 24 trials in Nairobi, where form deserted her in the senior women's race, clocking 31:21 to finish down the perking order in 23rd as her wishes to feature at the Mombasa World Cross effectively ended.
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| Copyright © 2008 The East African Standard. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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